Intro
"Filecoin Retrieval Checkers as FWS Services" is a project to integrate the Checker Network, including the Filecoin Spark protocol and its variants, into FWS, which is the next big release from FilOz. FilOz would like Checker Network to be one of the first "service creators" on FWS, bringing retrieval monitoring and assurance to deals made on Filecoin through FWS. Checker Network - integrated with the Retrieval Checker services - will be a launch partner for FWS when it ships.
Background
Over 2024, Filecoin Spark started measuring the retrieval success rate of Filecoin. Spark provides intelligence data used by FIDL and others to tweak the incentives around Filecoin retrievability. Over 2024, this led to a more-than-10x improvement in the retrieval success rate of Filecoin as measured by Spark. As of now, it is an almost 20x improvement since the start of the Spark project.
Plan
The plan for "Filecoin Retrieval Checkers as FWS Services" is as follows. When a Filecoin client comes to make a storage deal on FWS, they will be able to choose which service - or bundle of services - they wish to purchase. If they want a purely archival deal, they can select the PoREP service. If they want hot storage and retrieval assurances, they can select the, say, (PDP + Spark + Retriev) service bundle.
By choosing a storage and retrieval bundle, the client can rest assured that their data is retrievable from Filecoin and not just stored archivally. This retrievability guarantee is one of the fundamental missing pieces for the Filecoin project to capture market share beyond just the archival use case.
When a bundle is chosen and paid for, the amount paid is then split between the services that govern the bundle's SLAs.
Furthermore, the Retrieval Checker services will not only do checks on payload retrievals like how Filecoin Spark does it. We will work on a service that does piece retrieval checking with range requests, as well as one that does retriev-style checking, both deployed to the Checker Network too. These will all contribute to the VeriFIL project on FWS from FilOz.
Finally, once we have deployed the first few retrieval assurance checker services and protocols, we will productise what we have built to allow other FWS service creators to build services that use Checker Network and test retrievability or other key service level metrics.